Helmut Rauca

Helmut Rauca
Rauca's identity photo from Canadian CBC broadcast of November 4, 1982
Born	(1908-11-03)November 3, 1908 Trieb, Falkenstein
Died	October 29, 1983(1983-10-29) (aged 74) Kassel
Nationality	German, Canadian
Occupation	Professional policeman in German-occupied Europe
Known for	The Holocaust in Lithuania

Helmut Rauca (3 November 1908 – 29 October 1983) was the Holocaust perpetrator instrumental in the murder of more than 10,000 Jews from the Kaunas Ghetto, Lithuania, during World War II. He was a member of Einsatzgruppe A in the rank of Hauptscharführer (master sergeant). As the Gestapo Jewish Affairs Specialist, Rauca was responsible for the selection of about one-third of the Ghetto inmates including men, women, and children, to be killed during the Große Aktion known as the Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941 perpetrated at the remote Ninth Fort on the outskirts of Kaunas.

After the war, Rauca emigrated to Canada legally in 1950. He had become a Canadian citizen in 1956 under his own name and embarked on a successful business career. At the age of seventy-three, he was charged by the Canadian authorities with aiding and abetting in the murder of 10,500 persons forty three years earlier, in Kaunas.

Helmut Albert Rauca was born in Trieb, Falkenstein, Kingdom of Saxony. His father was an Austrian-born Albert Rauca and mother Alma née Wolf born in Trieb. Rauca apprenticed in a Plauen textile mill and joined the Nazi Party two years before Hitler's rise to power. He became a professional policeman in 1928 serving with the Order Police (Ordnungspolizei); in 1935 transferred to the detective division called Kripo (Kriminalpolizei) where he joined the SS, card number 290 335. He entered Kaunas on 3 July 1941 during Operation Barbarossa with the SS unit of Einsatzgruppe "A". Rauca lied to the Canadian officials, that he went to Kovno (Kaunas) half a year later in February or March 1942.